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It's just that the "good old days" were really only good for white men. Women and minorities had no real opportunities. It was a white man's world.
OK, now white males are legally discriminated against.
We call it Affirmative Action but what it really is a state sponsored effort to make already equal opportunity into equal outcomes.
The rationale upon which Affirmative Action was allowed to violate the very principle of equality it was supposed to uphold is that whites, and particularly white males, were given legal and societal advantages in the past for which newly enacted laws would take some time to remedy.
Well, it`s fifty-one years later and the only thing that has really changed is the rationale that we use to continue discriminating against those born white and male knowing that we can never admit that we were wrong in the first place.
Reality is not as simple as a social engineer`s theories, a feminist`s propaganda or a black racist`s rationalizations and the part of the story deliberately left out is still there when time proves the theories, propaganda and rationalizations false.
Blacks who clamored for admittance to whites-only schools in the South in the 1950s and demanded forced integration in the North-East and elsewhere in the 1970s show no real interest in academics in 2015.
Women still tend to choose safe jobs in comfortable environments and these jobs don`t necessarily pay as well as hazardous jobs where workers are exposed to unpleasant odors, noises, grease, grime, weather, etc.
I remember the 1950s, and although life in a small town may have been a bit idyllic in some ways, there were also:
1. polio epidemics for which we had to line up in the gym to get our emergency polio shots
2. air raid drills where we had to hide under our schools desks (what a laugh) or even evacuate classrooms and hide in the school basement
3. the Korean War was in full swing
4. the McCarthy witch hunts began
5. air pollution was getting terrible
6. spying between the Soviet Union and the United States was rampant, resulting in things like the trail of the Rosenburgs
7. cigarette smoking was rampant and until the mid-1950s there was no real evidence that it caused cancer
8. segregation was a stain on this nation's reputation and caused great suffering
9. Sputnik put our country into pure panic mode
10. the rise of Mao Zedong
11. Castro took over Cuba; the Bay Of Pigs
12. Khrushchev on the rise
13. the race to develop the hydrogen bomb
14. assassination attempt on President Truman
15. constant international stress begins over division of Germany/Berlin
16. early stages of the Vietnam conflict, which eventually leads us into the Vietnam War
17. the Warsaw Pact solidifies the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
18. nation in panic over Eisenhower's heart attack and long recovery
19. civil rights struggles begin boiling over
20. war between Egypt and Israel over Sinai
21. Soviet troops put down uprisings in several countries, including Hungary and Poland
22. Eisenhower substantially increased aid to Vietnam and the Middle East
And that's just the tip of the good old days iceberg.
We have all those types of problems and more, wars, HIV and diseases. A lot of those problems you point out was the government that was growing and being to globalist. Some of the problems you mentioned were even really problems in America. Did nothing improve today over the past like pollution controls and less smoking. Of course not. None of that is the real point. The real point is the culture, economic prosperity is deteriorating now when the future in 1960s was bright. Policies enacted in the 1960s and that leftist support and build on today are causing the deterioration.
Two things I immediately recall from my childhood. The first was the surprise I learned in 4th grade about the problem about JFK's election because he was Catholic......and at the time in my child mind, Catholic, Christian, Episcopalian was all the same to me. I didn't know there was a difference.
Secondly and more importantly, as a military brat in the 60's, there was no segregation in my elementary school, not forcibly, not by custom, ZERO. So it was kind of a surprise to hear about in school, perhaps in the mid 70's, because I, quite frankly, had never heard of segregation. It was something that I had never experienced in the military brat community.
So, really, when we talk about the old American society, just what part of that society are we talking about?
I grew up in the 1950's and 60's. It was not a happy time as my step father, who my mother married because I needed a father, was an obsessive drunk more interested in his amusement park than me. At least until I could work for the place. I went to a deep suburban school that had no black students but did have plenty of insane rules and "duck and cover" drills. At least being at school was not being at home.
After my parent's separation caused by his increased drinking and physical abuse I finished high school in a deep city school. That was actually fun because I was with real people not a bunch of White posers that were always competing with each other for social status.
Then I went to Vietnam for an interesting year on the sunny Mekong River. A number of "adventures" were experienced and I came home to 1967. I wondered what a berserker did for a living in Albany, NY. I even went to a Christian Church to help with the addiction to the effects of fear (effectively I came back a speed freak). All the preacher railed about was the evils of integration, the need to kill Commies (I actually had some experience at that) and how all the women that bared their legs were nothing but jezebels and sluts.
I figured this gut was a fraud of the first order so I stood up and called him out in church. Nearly going apoplectic the guy threw me out of his congregation. Half the congregation walked out with me. Great fun.
I like these times. I like seeing the previously trapped have some opportunity for making more money and living better lives. I like seeing and meeting women lawyers and engineers. I like seeing a beach full of women in skimpy swimsuits. I like modern cars. I like being able to fly across the county in 5 hours. I like a world where a retired guy can buy a 12 year old Corvette and drive it to Yellowstone park and back. I mostly like this day and age.
There are some things I do not like. I dislike our troops trying to save a few American investors in the Middle East. I really do not like our support of a hideous feudal kingdom. I do not like the preachers still spewing hellfire and damnation on anyone that does not want to Kill a Muslim for Christ. I do not like big city police departments having a license to kill so long as the killing is done in the right place and to people of the right color. I do not like some governor that would be King poisoning a substantially Black city to save his White friends some money.
I really like the idea that the heroes of a wildly popular adventure movie are a resourceful gifted woman and a self aware Black guy. That is a very good indicator of the future. Get used to it as the world is no longer set up to support incompetent White drunks.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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There were better and worse things about the 1950s. Immigration (from Europe) had slowed for decades so 99% were now part of a united White culture. Most of our history has involved fear of immigrants who weren't totally part of mainstream culture. Economically.. because the other great economies were still recovering from WW2 the USA had the lion's share of the world economy. This meant an average worker with little education but just honesty and work ethic could easily provide for a stay at home wife and children. The vast percent of children were raised by two married biological parents. The drug epidemic had not started yet. Most neighborhoods had little crime and the sense of community was strong.
What is better today? Way more creature comforts through technology. Improved health care keeps more people alive who would've dropped dead years ago. Beating your wife isn't considered acceptable. There is no official ceiling capping how high people can rise because of race or gender. The environment is much better, species nearly wiped out like the Bald Eagle are thriving, air and water are much cleaner.
I think today there is too much political correctness. But back then it was to the other extreme. Everything mainstream America believed couldn't be questioned. You couldn't even freely not fight in a war without being demonized. Look at the uproar a Black person who peacefully protested by sitting at a White's Only counter created.
I returned 2 weeks ago from working 16 months in Peru. In a lot of ways, Peru seemed like the USA of the 50's and 60's...family values trumped everything else, no freaking out with manger scenes at work, dating for the purpose of selecting a partner to marry, reward hard work, etc. In some ways, things have gotten better but we left a lot of good stuff along the way....the net, I think we haven't progressed.
American is regressing and has been since at least the mid to late 60's. Maybe if you're a communist, feminist, gay or foreigner who is favored over white Americans you think the cesspool dystopian the left is creating is progress.
All I have to do is step out in public to see it, ugly, illbred, hateful foreign faces everywhere. And the job market and economy has been horrible for decades. The only thing progressing is technology, which would progress without leftist. Nothing else is progressing about this society.
I agree with you for the most part. I disagree that most foreigners are ugly in the physical sense but balkanization and division is being encouraged in our country rather than assimilation. This does not make for a cohesive society.
I remember the 1950s, and although life in a small town may have been a bit idyllic in some ways, there were also:
1. polio epidemics for which we had to line up in the gym to get our emergency polio shots
2. air raid drills where we had to hide under our schools desks (what a laugh) or even evacuate classrooms and hide in the school basement
3. the Korean War was in full swing
4. the McCarthy witch hunts began
5. air pollution was getting terrible
6. spying between the Soviet Union and the United States was rampant, resulting in things like the trail of the Rosenburgs
7. cigarette smoking was rampant and until the mid-1950s there was no real evidence that it caused cancer
8. segregation was a stain on this nation's reputation and caused great suffering
9. Sputnik put our country into pure panic mode
10. the rise of Mao Zedong
11. Castro took over Cuba; the Bay Of Pigs
12. Khrushchev on the rise
13. the race to develop the hydrogen bomb
14. assassination attempt on President Truman
15. constant international stress begins over division of Germany/Berlin
16. early stages of the Vietnam conflict, which eventually leads us into the Vietnam War
17. the Warsaw Pact solidifies the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
18. nation in panic over Eisenhower's heart attack and long recovery
19. civil rights struggles begin boiling over
20. war between Egypt and Israel over Sinai
21. Soviet troops put down uprisings in several countries, including Hungary and Poland
22. Eisenhower substantially increased aid to Vietnam and the Middle East
And that's just the tip of the good old days iceberg.
I grew up in the same 40s/50s time frame and in addition to your list I remember cases of child and spousal abuse that was swept under the carpet as being no one's business. I remember stranger danger type flyers being sent home with school kids because someone was trying to lure kids into a car and a classmate dying in a back alley abortion. I remember whispers about the '*****' couple down the street and the women who had sex with teenagers. On the surface the 50s was an idealized time to grow up for many but the same social issues we have now were still there but they didn't get talked about like they do today, allowing most (but not all) kids to hold on to their innocents longer.
I'm talking about the government picking the winners and losers today which you call progress.
That was my point, prior to the mid 1960s a free society, free market and individuals decided without the government interfering and picking which races and gender to benefit and which to oppose. The leftist went from class warfare in the '30s and '40s which at least had some merit except unions were a better private sector solution than taxing the rich, to genetic warfare from the '60s onward where it's all about race and gender.
Seriously?
Completely ignoring the McCarthy blacklists, Hoover's surveillance programs, state sanctioned segregation...
What was "free" about any of that?
As for the OP, there should be a little more context for this thesis.
How do you define "society?"
Would it be the same on the lower east side of NYC as in Burlington, Iowa as in Chinatown in San Francisco as in Pine Ridge, SD?
Do people honesty believe that there was only ever "one society" in this country?
How is that possible?
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